Cosimo Ferrigolo, Edoardo Lazzari, Theresa Maria Schlichtherle / Extragarbo
Sound Device: Emanuele Pontecorvo
12th sep —31st oct 2024
At Platea Palazzo Galeano, Extragarbo explores for the first time an exhibition format distinct from the transient temporality of the live arts that have shaped their practice.
Concerto grew out of a process-based project involving the citizens of Lodi in May 2024. Drawing on Brandon LaBelle’s theories of sonic agency and Avery Gordon’s sociological imagination, the Venetian collective interviewed around one hundred people from across the city’s diverse communities, asking two simple questions:
“If you could choose a piece of music to be heard in public space, so that everyone could listen to it, what would it be? And where would you want it to play?”
The responses created an affective archive: a sound-map of the city that links specific songs to places charged with meaning for individuals and groups in very different ways.
Like a concert—understood as a dialogue between instruments or between a soloist and a choir—Extragarbo has installed a jukebox in the gallery space. Acting like a soloist in dialogue with the urban environment outside, it will unexpectedly and intermittently play the collected tracks throughout the run of the exhibition. This eclectic repertoire transforms the street into a choir, using a relational device that questions the shop window as a privileged site of visibility, while blurring the boundaries between inside and outside, public and private, and reflecting the richness and complexity of how the city is experienced.
Concerto is part of FARE COLLETTIVO, Platea’s new exhibition program. FARE COLLETTIVO asks why artists come together as collectives, what needs drive the creation of cooperative and shared spaces, and what alternative possibilities can emerge from collective artistic practice in a society that often prioritizes individualism and competition. Through four exhibitions, a publication, and a series of events, Platea
Photos: Alberto Messina
Theresa Maria Schlichtherle 